Samantha at the World's Fair eBook

And Josiah sez, “I guess you’d need a
new pair of knees by the time you got there.”

And I do spoze it wuz milds and milds from where I
wuz.

But I only wanted to let Josiah Allen know my cast-iron
determination to not be put off another minute in
payin’ my devours to Art.

He see it writ in my mean and didn’t make no
moves towards breakin’ it up.

Only he muttered sunthin’ about not carin’
so much about ile paintin’s as he did for lots
of other things.

But I heeded him not, and sez I, “We will go
early in the mornin’ before any one gits there.”
But I guess that several hundred thousand other folks
must have laid on the same plans overnight, for we
found the rooms full and runnin’ over when we
got there.

Before we got to the Art Palace, you’d know
you wuz in its neighborhood by the beautiful statutes
and groups of figgers you’d see all round you.

The buildin’ itself is a gem of art, if you
can call anything a gem that is acres and acres big
of itself, and then has immense annexes connected
with it by broad, handsome corridors on either side.

It is Greek in style, and the dome rises one hundred
and twenty-five feet and is surmounted by Martiny’s
wonderful winged Victory.

Another female is depictered standin’ on top
of the globe with wreaths in her outstretched hands.

Wall, I hope the figger is symbolical, and I believe
in my soul she is!

You enter this palace by four great portals, beautiful
with sculptured figgers and ornaments, and as you
go on in the colonnade you see beautiful paintin’s
illustratin’ the rise and progress of Art.

And way up on the outside, on what they call the freeze
of the buildin’ (and good land! I don’t
see what they wuz a-thinkin’ on, for I wuz jest
a-meltin’ down where I wuz, and it must have
been hotter up there).

But that’s their way.

Wall, way up there and on the pediment of the principal
entrances are sculptures and portraits of the ancient
masters of Art in relief.

In relief? That’s what they called it,
and I spoze them old men must felt real relieved and
contented to be sot down there in such a grand place,
and so riz up like. You could see plain by their
liniments how glad and proud they wuz to be in Chicago,
a-lookin’ down on that seen of beauty all round
’em. Lookin’ down on the terraces
richly ornamented with balustrades—­down
over the immense flight of steps down into the blue
water, with its flocks of steam lanches, and gondolas,
like gay birds of passage, settled down there ready
for flight.

All the light in this buildin’ comes down through
immense skylights.

There is no danger of folks a-fallin’ out of
the winders or havin’ anybody peek in unless
it is the man in the moon.

All round this vast room is a gallery forty feet wide,
where you could lock arms and promenade, and talk
about hens.